A/N. This story is inspired by the song 'No Surprises' by Radiohead.

No Surprises

I look out of the window. The black bars get in the way of my view of the sky, but the blue and white still mixes together in front of me like always.

Such a pretty house. Such a pretty garden.

She’ll come knocking at my door in a minute, like she always does. She operates like clockwork and I know exactly when she’ll come, bothering me about this and that, but she ignores the most important things. She thinks I’ve forgot what happened.

Sure enough, she knocks. I pretend I don’t hear her and focus on the messy palette of the sky, listening to the voices. They seem to be coming from inside my own head, but I wasn’t that stupid. Not that gone.

“Good morning, dear,” she says, entering without permission as always. I pretend I don’t see her and rock back and forth, dancing to some imaginary music inside my head. I’ll be happy as I am if only she would leave me alone. Yet she always wants to ask me how I’m feeling, how much I ate yesterday, how much I chewed at my hair. It’s like I don’t have any secrets anymore. Oh, but the best secret is still safe with me. They all think I don’t know anything about it anymore.

I peer out the corner of my eye at her. She’s walking slowly over to me, carrying a bundle of white in her arms, a motherly smile on her face. It made me feel sick, so I looked away and carried on rocking. Back and forth, back and forth. Such a pretty house, such a pretty garden…

“How are you feeling today?” she asks me, bending down beside me. I stare blankly ahead as she unbuckles something on my back. It’s better to let her get on with it. Last time I struggled she strapped me in even tighter so I couldn’t even rock back and forth. That was one of my only pastimes anymore. But then again, I wanted a quiet life.

I felt the pressure at my back ease, and the clothes I had already been wearing slipped off. I thought I’d better reply to her question.

“Fine.” The same answer I always gave. She knew it off by heart, just like I knew her. I looked down at the new bundle of white she had as she rubbed my back.

“My, you’re letting your hair get awfully dirty, dear,” she said, glancing in distaste at the greasy strands that fell lankly down my face. I grunted. What was it to her? It was my hair and I did what I wanted to it. She was always trying to control me, force me to wear the same clothes everyday, keep me in this same room day and night. They thought they had me fooled. But I knew better.

It turned out the new bundle of white was the same old jacket she made me wear.

“You won’t hurt yourself if you’re wearing this, my dear,” she had said to me the first time she put it on me. I hated it, and tried to prove her wrong by running headfirst into the wall. I ended up with a cracked skull and a small room with soft padding. I was furious they had put an end to me doing what I wanted so I started chewing at my hair instead, and since they never caught me at it they couldn’t do anything. They didn’t know I was winning really.

These days I didn’t bother fighting anymore. I just keep thinking back to when it happened – the thing they thought I didn’t remember anymore. Just because I hardly spoke they thought I had lost my mind. It was still there, all right. And I still remembered.

He had left me so long ago now. I remember the sad look in his eyes as he said it, hugging me for the last time and turning away forever. Then silence.

Silent.

He had been everything to me. But now where he had been was silence. Bruises that won’t heal.

And as long as could remember from that point onward, I had been here. Controlled by people who thought I was dangerous. Just because I rocked back and forth and chewed my hair and stared blankly and ran into walls and hardly spoke, they thought I was different. Especially her. She treated me like a child.

She was fastening my new jacket as I was thinking this, a pained expression on her face. And for once, I saw worry in her eyes. She looked at me.

“Please dear, please. I want you to get better. I want you to move on. It’s like you’re stuck in time. You’re trapped in the past. You might not remember what happened, but I do. And it isn’t worth it.”

She stood up, still looking at me, chewing her lip in concern. And for once, I looked right back at her. I opened my mouth, and said the longest sentence I had ever said since being there.

“I just want… a quiet life.”

Then I slumped to the soft floor in a heap, my eyes closed. I sensed her leave the room.

Silent. The pretty house and the pretty garden collapsed into nothingness.

I heard the music play again in my head, the same tune I heard everyday. While it was there, it didn’t make me feel better. I felt terrible, more terrible than I had ever felt before in my life. I could remember him and the way we drifted apart, the way the lump gathered in my throat as I had tried to stop him leaving. And the way I felt now, my arms tightly wrapped around me by the jacket I wore, the padded cell protecting me from myself, I really did feel as if I was trapped in the past.

No alarms and no surprises please

fin